Two weeks ago, we surveyed 3,670 people online about how they communicate. We discovered a remarkable difference between people over 41, who say they often talk on email more than they do in real life, and younger people who love in-person meetings and use a variety of apps. Is this our first digital generation gap?

You probably know Google Hangouts as an app that pops up in the corner of a browser tab or on your smartphone, but it’s possible to archive your messages in Gmail too—from here they can be searched, labelled and starred so you can bring up the most important ones whenever you need to.

You've seen it in a chat window. You've probably kldjhsljfalshj-ed a few times yourself. In context, it always makes sense, but how can you properly explain the text-scream phenomenon of lakgjiosdgjitheiow? What does i;slahkdsgkuhdsj really mean?

In many respects Google Hangouts is impressive—it brings together Google's disparate chat options rather neatly—but you should think twice about using it if you rely on making Google Voice calls from your computer.

There's a virus we need to talk about. It's spread between our brains, fingers, and keyboards, we rarely think about it, and we almost all do it. Maybe it's harmless. Or maybe it's corroding our entire language. Ughhhhhhhhhhh!

Skype has acknowledged a bug that is affecting users in pretty much the most horrifying way possible. Instant messages sent over Skype are being sent to random contacts—even contacts you've never connected with before.

Communicating in plain text can be really tough; it just doesn't allow the subtlety, nuance and level of emotion that humans need to understand conversations properly. If you struggle with it, the Sound-Word Index might be able to help you out.

A great collective whine is currently echoing across the interent as people find themselves locked out of their AIM accounts. It turns out getting customer support with a decade (plus!) old AIM account after AOL abandoned it is tricky.

For anyone inside the generation for which AOL was synonymous with the internet, and AIM was prerequisite to any social life at all, some pretty sad news: AOL just sacked its IM team. The old king of chat is paraplegic.

Chatting with all your friends on your phone usually can mean switching between five IM clients at once. Well, today you can save a few bucks by chatting in the one IM client to rule them… okay, sorry about that. Plus: keep an eye on the stars for free and go hunting for Bambi and all his woodland friends. I hear…

Everyone has an obnoxious instant messenger friend. If you don't, it's probably you. Our parents didn't come of age in the days of AOL, so it's unlikely that they were able to pass on the finer points of internet manners.

GroupMe changed our lives in Vegas. Now it's poised to change your lives around the globe—provided you have friends there. The newest version of the groupchat giant adds cross-client support, a new UI, direct messaging, and global reach.

Years before it was possible to spend hours at a time stalking exes and exes of exes on Facebook, there was just the straight up internet. Specifically, AOL — anyone who used Netscape or ICQ made me feel uneasy because... well, how simple was it to just use AOL? It was obviously the superior internet provider. They…

In the updated Meebo iPhone app you can now click links or scan QR codes to virtually "check-in" (buzzwords, woohoo) to your favorite websites. There's also a real-time feed which will show Facebook, Twitter, and Meebo updates too. [iTunes]